NEW YORK, October 26th. Barnes and Noble have again upped the ante. In response to Amazon.com's announcement yesterday offering restricted e-book lending on Kindle devices, Barnes and Noble have introduced a new unlimited book lending feature.

"Amazon have missed the boat," claimed a Barnes and Noble Spokesperson. "Their outdated approach only allows certain enabled e-books to be loaned a single time, for a non-adjustable two-week period of time--even less than can be done with a cheaper, paper-based book. Our new technology, enabled on all Nook versions, enables all of the digital books you own to be shared multiple times, without such restrictions, yet still prevents multiple individuals from unfairly reading the same book at the same time."

Although the sharing technology was not demonstrated due last-minute troubleshooting, an insider described the technique as "actually loaning the physical nook (and all the books on in) to your friend".

In a separate announcement, Macmillan Publishers, Inc.. announced a lawsuit against Barnes and Noble in order in order to restrain this technology from reaching the market. "This illegal and unethical sharing technology will directly harm the ability of our authors to make money from their works," they argued in an open letter to the Internet, raising investor fears that Barnes and Noble may soon be vilified online as Amazon themselves were earlier this year when they attempted to challenge publisher price fixing and collusion by temporarily halting sales of physical books.

I hope B&N beats Macmillan, and then Amazon will probably meet the challenge too.

ETA: I wonder how reliable the information is. It would seem to be a pretty big announcement, and one B&N would want published far and wide, but I'm not seeing it reported out there. It is late in the day, though.

NEW YORK, October 26th. Barnes and Noble have again upped the ante. In response to Amazon.com's announcement yesterday offering restricted e-book lending on Kindle devices, Barnes and Noble have introduced a new unlimited book lending feature.

"Amazon have missed the boat," claimed a Barnes and Noble Spokesperson. "Their outdated approach only allows certain enabled e-books to be loaned a single time, for a non-adjustable two-week period of time--even less than can be done with a cheaper, paper-based book. Our new technology, enabled on all Nook versions, enables all of the digital books you own to be shared multiple times, without such restrictions, yet still prevents multiple individuals from unfairly reading the same book at the same time."

Although the sharing technology was not demonstrated due last-minute troubleshooting, an insider described the technique as "actually loaning the physical nook (and all the books on in) to your friend".

In a separate announcement, Macmillan Publishers, Inc.. announced a lawsuit against Barnes and Noble in order in order to restrain this technology from reaching the market. "This illegal and unethical sharing technology will directly harm the ability of our authors to make money from their works," they argued in an open letter to the Internet, raising investor fears that Barnes and Noble may soon be vilified online as Amazon themselves were earlier this year when they attempted to challenge publisher price fixing and collusion by temporarily halting sales of physical books.

That is a beautiful thing for B&N to attempt. And great that Macmillan is suing ONLY B&N so if B&N wins then Amazon can implement the same policy.

One thing I would say in defense of the authors, printed books have one built in limitation which does not exist for ebooks....they wear out. So, I do see the publishers having a reasonable argument here. I do see the point of some sort of limitation on lending as even the only to one user at a time policy does not take into account a book being lent 100's of times, a thing, I would add, greatly increased the likelihood of lending ebooks because there is zero chance it would not be "retuned".

I'm pretty sure Amazon has already implemented the same technology. I did the unlimited loaning thing with my old K2 just the other day and let a neighbor take it with her to the hospital while her husband was having outpatient surgery.

I think they just rolled that "function" out more quietly. Maybe they still consider it to be one of those experimental functions.

That is a beautiful thing for B&N to attempt. And great that Macmillan is suing ONLY B&N so if B&N wins then Amazon can implement the same policy.

One thing I would say in defense of the authors, printed books have one built in limitation which does not exist for ebooks....they wear out. So, I do see the publishers having a reasonable argument here. I do see the point of some sort of limitation on lending as even the only to one user at a time policy does not take into account a book being lent 100's of times, a thing, I would add, greatly increased the likelihood of lending ebooks because there is zero chance it would not be "retuned".

Bah! Rubbish! New technology, new sharing policies! It's like the music reproducibility thing (when the gramaphone started)... multiple copies = horror!. I think that if this works for B&N it would be "revolutionary!" (dons his turtle neck shirt) =P. Sharing and lending ... illegal and unethical? They should start suing libraries then. They even go the extra mile to guarantee that no two persons can read the book at the same time. I label that as extra-nice fair.

Publishers may as well get ready because ebooks are here to stay. As for the "unlimited" lending I'm sure just like "unlimited" calling plans there's a catch. Also what about used books aren't they just as bad as this unlimited lending thing since the author does not get a dime from their sale. So why not try and ban them as well since publishers seem to be worried about profit. I hope B&N wins besides it's silly to think that B&N would allow TRUE unlimited lending because they'd be hurting themselves in the long run if they did.

"Amazon have missed the boat," claimed a Barnes and Noble Spokesperson. "Their outdated approach only allows certain enabled e-books to be loaned a single time, for a non-adjustable two-week period of time--even less than can be done with a cheaper, paper-based book.

Wasn't that the same "outdated approach" Barnes and Noble used until yesterday? Or am I mistaken?